Mike Littwin

Littwin: Newt's history: Freddie Mac strikes back

It's probably not fair to call Newt Gingrich a pathological liar, although it is exactly the kind of thing he would say about someone else in this situation.

Let's just say that Gingrich, the self-described outsider, is not all that he seems to be. Or maybe, worse, he is exactly what he seems to be.

Gingrich is in the news because, suddenly, with the implosion of virtually everyone else in the Republican presidential field, he's now a contender. Sort of.

And so the post-Tiffany, post-Greek-isle-vacation scrutiny of Team Gingrich has begun — and with a blockbuster story, at that. Bloomberg News has reported that mortgage giant Freddie Mac — the bane of all conservatives — paid Gingrich at least $1.6 million over eight years for, in Gingrich's words, offering advice as a "historian" and for telling Freddie officials that their business model was "insane."

He had two contracts with Freddie, the first coming in 1999, just five months after he had resigned, in some disgrace, as House speaker. It paid $25,000 to $30,000 a month for Gingrich's, uh, advice on their insanity. Strangely, I get people telling me I'm nuts for free.

According to Freddie executives — who said Gingrich never mentioned anything about "insane" models — Gingrich was hired to "build bridges" to his old pals (although not to lobby them) and also to "provide written material that could be circulated among conservatives on Capitol Hill and outside organizations."

As a friend said to me, recalling our own Scott McInnis, this sounds a lot like a multiyear "musings on mortgages." And maybe it's just me, but I don't know many historians who get paid well enough to have, if they wanted them, Tiffany-diamond-encrusted bookmarks.

Advertisement

But Gingrich says we can't know exactly what he did for Freddie because, employing the Herman Cain rule, he warns of a confidentiality agreement, designed, we're guessing, so that no one will ever find what Gingrich did or didn't do.

Here's what we do know (thanks to the folks at Talking Points Memo): Gingrich went on Fox News in 2008, soon after his work at Freddie Mac had ended, to counsel John McCain to demand that Barack Obama give back the campaign money he received from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

We're now waiting — in fact, I'm starting a pool — to see when Gingrich returns the $1.6 million he received. Small bills preferred.

Gingrich's second gig with Freddie began in 2006 with a two-year contract paying him $300,000 a year. He was not alone. In a 2008 Associated Press story, it was reported that Freddie had paid $11.7 million to 52 outside lobbyists and consultants, including Gingrich, in 2006. I wonder, though, how many of them were historians.

Here's the thing about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Liberals scoff at the idea that they were a root cause of the housing bubble. But that doesn't mean, as Paul Krugman points out, that Freddie Mac was not "a deeply corrupt institution," one that spread historian money all over town. And Gingrich was doubly valuable. He now says his role for Freddie also included "strategic adviser."

Is this an issue that Gingrich can survive? Sure, if it were the only one. He's got so much baggage that even Southwest would have to charge him. I mean, if things get serious in Iowa, someone will surely air Gingrich's 2008 ad co-starring Nancy Pelosi (he's pals with Freddie Mac and Nancy Pelosi?) in which they together called for the need to "address climate change."

Gingrich would come to call the Pelosi ad "probably the dumbest single thing I've done in recent years." Note the use of the word "recent."

Gingrich's front-runner status won't last long, not once people are reminded of why they didn't like him to begin with. And it's such a long list.

It's not just the smugness or the rudeness or the immaturity (he once admitted he helped close the government because, in part, he was upset by his seat selection on Air Force One) or the fact that serial adulterer Gingrich was blasting Bill Clinton for having adulterous sex with a White House intern even as the thrice-married Gingrich was having adulterous sex with a congressional staffer.

Here's typical Gingrich. He was asked during a recent debate why so few Wall Streeters had been prosecuted during the financial crisis. His answer went this way:

"If you want to put people in jail ... you ought to start with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. And let's look at the politicians who created the environment, the politicians who profited from the environment, and the politicians who put this country in trouble."

Not to mention all those profit-making political historian strategic advisers.